Hi [Greg Ward]
One question: should these ZIP-archives filenames be placed in sys.path or should Python scan for ZIP-archives within the dirs on sys.path ?
I think the archive file should be listed in sys.path.
the latest jython code base (2.1a3) allow to put jar/zip in the sys.path or reference of the form jarfile!pkgdir1/pkgdir2 This are used to set meaningful __path__ attrs for the packages and should allow to deal with code that change __path__ pointing to some relative subdir according to some context property.
Note that my experience of this in Java was largely negative, because Java doesn't have a standard way of putting .class files in the filesystem (AFAIK) -- so everything has to be in a .jar file, and those .jar files can be anywhere you please.
I don't get the point :(
So you end up with a mile-long CLASSPATH that's very fragile and forever needing fixing. As long as most Python modules are accessed the ordinary way (files in a directory), then Python won't have a problem. But if somebody makes a Python installation with "stdlib.zip", "distutils.zip", "mxDateTime.zip", etc. etc., then the poor users will be in the same boat as Java users.
The main concerns I have with scanning sys.path directories for ZIP files are performance and transparence. (It ain't necessarily obvious where a particular module will come from if sys.path can be searched in two ways.)
I agree. regards.